第5章

We three, however (almost complete strangers to each other), had assumed attitudes of serious amiability round our table.A waiter approached for orders and it was then, in relation to my order for coffee, that the absolutely first thing I learned of Captain Blunt was the fact that he was a sufferer from insomnia.In his immovable way Mills began charging his pipe.I felt extremely embarrassed all at once, but became positively annoyed when I saw our Prax enter the cafe in a sort of mediaeval costume very much like what Faust wears in the third act.I have no doubt it was meant for a purely operatic Faust.A light mantle floated from his shoulders.He strode theatrically up to our table and addressing me as "Young Ulysses" proposed I should go outside on the fields of asphalt and help him gather a few marguerites to decorate a truly infernal supper which was being organized across the road at the Maison Doree - upstairs.With expostulatory shakes of the head and indignant glances I called his attention to the fact that I was not alone.He stepped back a pace as if astonished by the discovery, took off his plumed velvet toque with a low obeisance so that the feathers swept the floor, and swaggered off the stage with his left hand resting on the hilt of the property dagger at his belt.

Meantime the well-connected but rustic Mills had been busy lighting his briar and the distinguished Captain sat smiling to himself.Iwas horribly vexed and apologized for that intrusion, saying that the fellow was a future great sculptor and perfectly harmless; but he had been swallowing lots of night air which had got into his head apparently.

Mills peered at me with his friendly but awfully searching blue eyes through the cloud of smoke he had wreathed about his big head.

The slim, dark Captain's smile took on an amiable expression.

Might he know why I was addressed as "Young Ulysses" by my friend?

and immediately he added the remark with urbane playfulness that Ulysses was an astute person.Mills did not give me time for a reply.He struck in: "That old Greek was famed as a wanderer -the first historical seaman." He waved his pipe vaguely at me.

"Ah! Vraiment!" The polite Captain seemed incredulous and as if weary."Are you a seaman? In what sense, pray?" We were talking French and he used the term homme de mer.

Again Mills interfered quietly."In the same sense in which you are a military man." (Homme de guerre.)It was then that I heard Captain Blunt produce one of his striking declarations.He had two of them, and this was the first.

"I live by my sword."

It was said in an extraordinary dandified manner which in conjunction with the matter made me forget my tongue in my head.Icould only stare at him.He added more naturally: "2nd Reg.

Castille, Cavalry." Then with marked stress in Spanish, "En las filas legitimas."Mills was heard, unmoved, like Jove in his cloud: "He's on leave here.""Of course I don't shout that fact on the housetops," the Captain addressed me pointedly, "any more than our friend his shipwreck adventure.We must not strain the toleration of the French authorities too much! It wouldn't be correct - and not very safe either."I became suddenly extremely delighted with my company.A man who "lived by his sword," before my eyes, close at my elbow! So such people did exist in the world yet! I had not been born too late!

And across the table with his air of watchful, unmoved benevolence, enough in itself to arouse one's interest, there was the man with the story of a shipwreck that mustn't be shouted on housetops.

Why?

I understood very well why, when he told me that he had joined in the Clyde a small steamer chartered by a relative of his, "a very wealthy man," he observed (probably Lord X, I thought), to carry arms and other supplies to the Carlist army.And it was not a shipwreck in the ordinary sense.Everything went perfectly well to the last moment when suddenly the Numancia (a Republican ironclad)had appeared and chased them ashore on the French coast below Bayonne.In a few words, but with evident appreciation of the adventure, Mills described to us how he swam to the beach clad simply in a money belt and a pair of trousers.Shells were falling all round till a tiny French gunboat came out of Bayonne and shooed the Numancia away out of territorial waters.

He was very amusing and I was fascinated by the mental picture of that tranquil man rolling in the surf and emerging breathless, in the costume you know, on the fair land of France, in the character of a smuggler of war material.However, they had never arrested or expelled him, since he was there before my eyes.But how and why did he get so far from the scene of his sea adventure was an interesting question.And I put it to him with most naive indiscretion which did not shock him visibly.He told me that the ship being only stranded, not sunk, the contraband cargo aboard was doubtless in good condition.The French custom-house men were guarding the wreck.If their vigilance could be - h'm - removed by some means, or even merely reduced, a lot of these rifles and cartridges could be taken off quietly at night by certain Spanish fishing boats.In fact, salved for the Carlists, after all.He thought it could be done....